Webinars
Oates Institute Webinars
The Oates Institute hosts webinars in a wide variety of areas with some of the finest clinicians and thought leaders in the country. You can view these learning opportunities through Adobe Connect. No special software is needed to make this work, just your browser.
Please click on one of the webinar topics listed below to find out more information or to purchase access to the webinar.
Books
The Pastoral Prophet
This engaging volume contains several of Oates’s sermons and prayers. Editor and Oates Award Winner William Powell Tuck skillfully and accurately describes Oates’s approach to and beliefs about preaching as addressing the deepest needs of our personal and congregational lives. Then he summarizes his assumptions about the task of preaching. While this book does pay tribute to Oates, it primarily focuses on much-needed wisdom for contemporary clerics. These powerful messages grow from serious biblical deliberation, reflect sound theological reflection, and make creative use of great literature.
Narrative Research in Ministry
We are in a real sense, our stories. Who we are, what we think, and how we act are all shaped by the many large and small stories that make up the discourse embedded in our multi-sensory social experience. It is this postmodern understanding of identity and reality that has prompted the authors to fashion a new way of thinking about doing research in faith communities today, particularly through a Doctor of Ministry program. It is our belief that, in order for faith communities to define themselves and to know what to do in ministry, they must first understand the multiple stories which intersect with a given ministry situation in their specific context.
The Struggle to be Free
In The Struggle To Be Free, Dr. Wayne Oates reflects on his struggle to be free to decide his own destiny; to choose his own direction; to express his own thoughts; to work in his own way; and to put into action what he perceived as God’s destiny for him. At the same time, he leads readers to understand the spiritual dimensions of their own lives so that they might set themselves free from poverty, feelings of inferiority, regimentation, loneliness, helplessness, and compulsive work.
Grief, Transition, and Loss: A Pastor's Practical Guide (Creative Pastoral Care & Counseling)
In this book written for counselors and pastors, Wayne Oates shares ideas from a lifetime of ministry on how to help people who have suffered loss-- not only to death, but also to such life situations as separation, divorce, and job loss.
The Christian Pastor, Third Edition, Revised
A standard work in seminaries and a reliable guide for clergy in many denominations for over thirty years, The Christian Pastor has been revised to include up-to-date research on the role of pastors in contemporary life. In examining today's changing ministry, Wayne Oats makes use of recent psychological interpretations, and at the same time preserves the biblical and theological emphases of earlier editions.
Honoring Rob: Poems, Prayers, and Meditations
The poems and meditations gathered here grow out of a long struggle with hope in the face of immense struggles; with sense of self, with painful losses, and with the despair of clinical depression. But as the words struggled forth through the tension between memory and despair to find their place on a page, they have nurtured and been nurtured by an enduring thread of hope. Several of these have been submitted for prior publication and have found their way into the pages of The Christian Century, Journal of Pastoral Care, and anthologies such as People Hold Balloons Softly. A couple of these, such as "Emeritus," were submitted without finding the right place until now. Quite a few of these have been used as parts of sermons and other writings by friends. Many of these were first written as gifts honoring special occasions and celebrations.
The Care of Troublesome People
Wayne Oates combines family systems theory with insightful analysis of five types of behavior that frequently create conflict in congregations. Dr. Oates provides biblically-based approaches to assist clergy, congregational lay leaders, and denominational leaders in the care of persons while demonstrating these behaviors.
A Practical Handbook for Ministry: From the Writings of Wayne E. Oates
For years, the many books of Wayne Oates have served as invaluable field manuals for ministers and seminarians. Here, for the first time in one volume and by a minister who studied with him, are selected chapters from this distinguished author's fundamental works. This helpful new book reflects Oates's wisdom, clinical insight, and exhaustive search for scriptural understanding.
Luck: A Secular Faith
In this book, Wayne Oates defines luck as a secular faith, examining the ways in which the idea of our experiences being based on luck dominates much of our thinking about how and why our lives develop as they do. According to Oates, this secular "faith in luck" is unhealthy and should be countered with faith in God.
Behind the Masks: Personality Disorders in Religious Behavior (Personality Disorders in Religious Behaviour)
Wayne Oates, one of America's leading pastoral counselors, draws on psychological insights to describe in everyday language several common personality disorders that make human interaction so difficult. He examines the reasons why individuals develop as they do and illuminates how personality disorders can result in destructive relgious behavior. Proposing pastoral care approaches that combine understanding with empathy and firmness, Oates discusses how the resources of the Christian faith can unmask these disorders so the real person can emerge. He concludes with a sixfold agenda for the total ministry of the church to prevent, affect, and deal with personality disorders.
Listening and Caring Skills in Ministry: A Guide for Groups and Leaders
The secret to leadership and transformation of a group--or of another person--is the quality of the relationship one person has with another. The effective group leader or counselor will be the person who learns how to listen to other people. By studying and employing listening skills, church leaders will engage others more compassionately, allowing them to feel that their needs are being met. These skills can be used with persons who are terminally ill, inactive at church, going through a divorce, in a family with a severely ill person, unemployed, seeking a new church, grieving, traumatized by catastrophe, going through teenage adolescence, in marriage counseling, or leading a ministry team.
John Savage offers eleven specific and teachable listening skills for improving relationships among those who do ministry in small-group settings or when offering counsel to others. The skills are taught through oral exercises and unfailingly helpful examples from actual congregational situations. The skills include paraphrasing, productive questions, perception check, expression of feelings and emotions, fogging, negative inquiry, behavior description, and story listening.
Oates Award Recipient Presentations
2018 Oates Awards Videos featuring Dr. Glenn Hinson
The Oates Institute honored Dr. E. Glenn Hinson as the 2018 Wayne E. Oates Award Recipient in its annual Awards Banquet Thursday, October 18, 2018 at the Crescent Hill Baptist Church Fellowship Hall at 2200 Frankfort Avenue in Louisville. This collection of videos from the event include his presentation titled: “Attentiveness to God in All of Life”.
Others honored for outstanding ministry, service, and leadership and exceptional contributions to field of spiritual / pastoral care and spirituality, who are also featured in the videos are:
- Dr. Gail Henson for outstanding facilitation of Oates seminars
- Alissa Meriwether for outstanding contribution to the Oates board
- Chaplain Kelley Woggon, M. Div., BCC, Director of Pastoral Care and Director of Palliative Care, Norton Healthcare – long time chaplain service
- Judy Lambeth -M.R.E-SW, M.S.S.W., President and CEO of Maryhurst – Servant Leadership
- Chaplain Isaac Njuguna, M. Div., Retired, Director of Pastoral Care, University Hospital – Outstanding ACPE Educator / Supervisor
2017 Oates Awards Banquet Recordings featuring Harry Pickens
The 2017 Oates Institute Awards Gathering brought together our community of supporters, students, and friends to celebrate "Spirituality, Faith Journeys and the Arts" as we honored five deserving individuals, including jazz pianist Harry Pickens. The evening was hosted by Louisville radio personality Susan Sweeney Crum and was held at Deer Park Baptist Church in Louisville. In addition to Pickens, who also performed at the event (check out our recordings below), the Oates Institute honored the following individuals:
- Outstanding Pastoral Leadership - Rev. Dr. David Platt, Pastor, Deer Park Baptist Church
- Spiritual/Pastoral Care Service Honor - Chaplain Bob Cunningham, Chaplain, Norton Suburban Hospital
- Outstanding Facilitator - Chaplain Dina Carroll, Chaplain, Hosparus
- Outstanding Board Member - Elaine Akin
- 2017 Oates Award - Harry Pickens
The audio recordings of the event, as well as event photographs, are available on the recording page.